With New Sight
by Flickering Wick
Summary: An unknown enemy strikes Konoha and leaves Sakura sprawling in recovery far from home. Her caretaker is diligent, and claims to be able to heal all of her injuries except what occurred to her eyes. They're both unwittingly in the same hurry to heal her eyes: her, so she can help Konoha; he, so she can heal his as well. ItaSaku
1. Started With a Whisper

It started with a whisper of air caressing my ear, murmuring sweet nothing as disaster inched closer. The gentle slide of teardrops of rain was battered into whips of water, slashing closer and closer to the village. Wind-borne dust raked across my skin, searing my eyes before they could instinctively close. The same dust coated my lungs with each intake of breath, causing both my nerves and my chest to rattle. These frivolous ailments, along with the incessant rustle of leaves and the arrogant roar of the wind, began to steal my focus until an image of terror flashed through my mind.

The image of Konoha, sheared to shreds, toppled over like so many wooden building blocks, decimated like a stamped-out flower garden, plagued my mind. I could _not_ let that happen to my people, personal discomfort be damned. I moved my hitai-ate to cover my mouth, that the dust in my lungs would not multiply enough to impede my work further, and clenched my eyes shut.

I could only assume that the others were already in position, away from any tall structures and lying belly-down on the ground to avoid lightning. I sent out a signal via a pulse of chakra along the ground and received its twin reply of readiness. Knowing I could delay the inevitable no longer, I summoned all the strength I could muster and applied myself to creating a cushion of chakra to insulate Konohagakure from the impending wrath of the storm. As I focused my efforts on my designated area, I felt the energy of others spring up to guard the remainder of the village.

The very soil held its breath as the storm roiled toward the outskirts of the village, and a collective sigh was let out when, after five tense minutes, the shield held.

And then all hell broke loose.

A monolithic crack of thunder sounded to my right and the lightning left a menacing green afterimage behind my eyelids. Mine was not the only area of shielding to sputter in surprise, but all sections quickly renewed their fortification… Except one.

The ninja stationed to my right had been hit by that blast of plasma. Killed, no question about it. We had known our enemy had the power to generate this storm, this furious, delicate balance of forces alien to the Konoha intellect. What we hadn't known was that even after its birth, the creator had the chakra wealth and control to manipulate the movements and expulsions of the storm.

I spread more of my chakra out to compensate for the resultant hole in the shield, shoving my mourning aside for later contemplation. If there was anything Sasuke had forced down my throat, it was the idea that emotions hindered power, and power was what I needed to guard the village against the storm. Power, and a lot of good fortune, which didn't seem to be in abundance at just that moment, as another bolt of lightning struck.

After the second strike, I lost count of how many more ninja fell to the wrath of the elements. I refused to wallow in desperation and spread my energy too thinly over all of the holes in our defenses, feeling other ninja do the same. And when the lightning came for me, I was too exhausted to do more than just roll over a couple of times. At the last moment, I thought to form a seal and transport myself away, but there was no time to think of a sake place, only time to act.

The last thing I saw was the flop of dusty pink hair over my eyes, and then all went black.

* * *

"I have to get back there," my voice tried to say, ending up forming an incoherent series of grunts.

I couldn't move the left side of my face, I realized. Or my left arm, left leg, left toes. Crusty black slime littered my eyelashes and, I could imagine, the rest of my body. The extreme heat of the lightning had superheated half of my body and left the other half oozing with burns. I couldn't move, even if I had been able to suck up the excruciating pain long enough to try.

"She's up, she's up!" a pubescent voice cracked from somewhere below me.

I was blind with the black gook obstructing my vision and couldn't see enough to establish where "below me" was. The voice continued to patter on, but I was in too much pain to distinguish one word from the next until soft bass tones replaced the adolescent conglomeration of sound, soothing my ears.

"Shut up," were the simple words uttered to silence the more annoying voice.

My voice struggled to surface, anxiously pushing against the pain of my throat in hope of asking the sensible baritone voice where I was and who I was with and if Konoha was safe and a hundred other questions that were instead muffled by a horrific gargling noise.

The chakra at my command was less than minimal, barely enough to maintain consciousness, so healing myself enough to speak was out of the question, unless I wanted to send myself into a coma. This being said, I was more than shocked to see a dim green glow through the slime in my eyes and I began to panic. I was worried that I'd lost control of my chakra and was going to heal myself to death by draining my remaining energy. I relaxed upon coming to the conclusion that my rescuer was probably a ninja of some sort, one from Konoha sent to heal the survivors. My throat quickly cleared of grit and the scarred tissue knit itself together as I felt a hand remove my hitai-ate from over my mouth.

"Thank you," I managed when the faint green glow had faded from my barely-existent sight. My voice had come out whole, but distant.

I realized that only one of my ears was working and inwardly cringed as I thought about what that had to indicate about the extent of damage I had receiver.

"Where am I?" I asked, fully expecting to be told we were in the outskirts of Konoha, inside a medical pavilion.

"Iwagakure," piped up the younger voice. "You're at my house in Iwagakure. You would've been taken to the hospital, but it's under renovation at the moment in honor of Iwa's longest period of peace in a century. There were only ten patients there, so they were sent to family physicians for temporary care while the government quickly updates the facilities. We've been meaning to fix the place up for a while," the teen added by way of explanation.

"Iwagakure?" I exclaimed and began to breathe very fast. How could I possibly have teleported so far away? Maybe the chakra fueling the lightning blast had mixed with my own and amplified my efforts.

I couldn't control the anxiety and panic flooding through my body, which was already in shock enough from the injuries. How could I heal quickly enough to get back to Konoha and help repair the village? Unless this man was a seriously talented medic, I wouldn't get anywhere for at least a month, and then traveling back on foot would take another week.

My body was to the point of brimming with the stress of all of these thoughts, so it responded in the only way it knew to silence the hassle: shutting down.

As I again slipped into unconsciousness, the baritone voice again drifted into my ears, saying, "I warned you not to overexcite her, Kisame."

* * *

**You like it? Think it's intense? Think I should tone down the wordiness? Tell me so! I'm all ears, babe, so have at it!**


	2. Dr Tashi

I woke up expecting searing pain, but instead experienced a great sense of disorientation. I knew there was something important to remember from before I lost consciousness, something about who my benefactors were, but either my present condition of confusion or my previous state of painful semi-consciousness caused an error along the retrieval pathways in my brain.

All that I was sure of was that I was moving, and quickly. Someone had wrapped me in a blanket and was running to I knew not where. I had not even the most remote of guesses as to where I was headed, but apparently my awakening had alerted my carrier because my question was soon answered.

"My brother said we had to leave fast, so we're on our way to Sunagakure. You need a more extensive medical facility to repair those wounds," the unpleasantly oscillating teenage voice explained.

"Where is your brother?" I asked, unable to see for myself, as my vision was still impaired.

"He's taking care of some business back in Iwa; he assigned me to leave you in the care of Suna's finest medics and leave contact information so that if anything were to happen, we could take you in again. But don't worry, we know just the man to take you to. He's a specialist in burns and he's the one who recommended the pain medication you're under right now," the young man continued.

"What's his name?" I questioned eagerly, glad to hear of the somewhat familiar territory that comprised Suna.

"Dr. Tashi," he replied, pausing a bit as if struggling to remember. "We're almost there, just a couple more minutes."

"Have you heard any news from Konoha? How long has it been since you found me?" I fired out almost too quickly to be comprehensible.

"Only a few days. And Konoha is fine; they are receiving help from Suna in repairing the land and buildings that were damaged by the storm. Rumor has it that the storm stopped as suddenly as it started. No one knows why or how."

"Where's my hitai-ate?" was the next question I shot out. I had been wondering where it went ever since I realized that it was the key to my rescuer's source of knowledge about me.

"It's on your head like a headband, holding back your hair. I wasn't really sure what to do with it, so I just stuck it the first logical place that wasn't covered in scar tissue," he explained.

The sense of relief I felt knowing that my symbolic ninja accessory was in place was almost unwarranted. Perhaps it simply felt as though it carried my sanity and identity with it. As long as the leaf symbol was emblazoned on my head, I knew I was really me, really here, really not dreaming about the catastrophe that had struck my village, and the lightning that had struck me.

"We're here," he announced, subsequently dropping me from his arms onto a soft surface that I could only assume was a hospital bed of some sort. "The doctor should be here soon; get comfortable while you wait. I'm going to leave now. It was very nice to meet you, Sakura."

"Good-bye," I uttered politely, and heard the door click shut and his footsteps muffle.

I had never told him my name; of that much I was certain. My earlier worry at not being able to recall the information I had gleaned about the man's identity surged to the surface, ringing all of my warning bells along the way. A shiver of uncertainty snaked its way up my spine until I cut off my fear. This man, whoever he was and however he knew me, had helped me when I was helpless. The only feeling I should associate with him was gratitude, and I intended to keep that in mind instead of persisting in the maledictions that came to mind when I thought of his knowledge and my lack of such. Suddenly, I realized that I didn't even know his name; all I knew was that he had a brother and lived in Iwagakure. I fought back the renewed impulse toward suspicion and was promptly aided in this endeavor by the arrival of my doctor.

"Hello there, how are you feeling today?" a deep voice asked.

If there was anything positive about not being able to see, it was the exercise my imagination received when I heard the manly voices of my past couple of conscious days. A voice can conjure up some very attractive male templates. Add in the fact that he was a doctor and it's easy to understand why I wasn't paying attention to what the words that voice was saying were. He must have asked multiple times because I could hear an agitated foot tapping faster than my heartbeat.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I replied, hoping he would take my inattention as a symptom of whatever ailments were afflicting me.

No such luck.

"Was your mind elsewhere? I can come back at a different time if you wish to be treated later," came the terse response.

Personally, I thought that was rather harsh. Maybe my ears had been injured, how could he know? My pride had been pricked, and the wound was oozing rather disgustingly, so I yanked my humility out of the recesses of my brain and forced myself to understand that if I were him, I would have had a _worse_ reaction.

"Please stay, I meant no disrespect. I need your help," I pleaded.

My chakra was back to full strength, but the amount of healing that my body required was beyond what a single session would accomplish. This was hours of work on a good day, and I still was not having a good day, if flayed skin and pain medication were any indication.

"I will certainly help you, but I heal only what I am asked to heal. I will not waste my time with someone who will take my services for granted."

"I am also a medic back in Konoha," I hurriedly added, trying to be helpful. "I can do part of the healing."

"No," was the monosyllabic reply.

"What? Why don't you want my help? It will make the process go so much faster!" I yelled, exasperated that he would refuse me the dignity of being of use, rather a sore spot of my past.

"Your skill is required for an area that exceeds my expertise. Your eyes have a serious problem. That black film in front of them is the least of your concerns; from what I can tell, you can only see the faint glow of light and cannot distinguish one object from the next. While I heal you, I will do my best to explain what I have learned of the damage, but my abilities are not of the ocular persuasion. You will have to heal that injury yourself. For this reason, I request that you reserve your chakra."

Again my pride had ripped free of its chains to make a mockery of my indignation. Anger was too quick to surface and my emotions had cost me a level of respect in my first impression. I appeared weak instead of in control, and when you feel weak when you **are** weak, well… You check your emotions with a fair dose of ice cold stoicism.

"In that case, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Let's get started," I requested patiently, holding back the anxiety I felt while thinking about my damaged eyes. I hadn't known they were so injured; I just thought that they had some gunk stuck outside of them.

"I thought you would never ask," sighed the voice in its low tones.

That peaceful noise resonated within me, relaxing something inside as a faint green glow coursed out in front of me.

* * *

**I thought this chapter would be longer, but this just felt like such a chapter break plot-wise that I had to stop it there. **

**Check my page for a new story coming soon!**


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